kitchen dragon @draco@kith.kitchen

By the way, the situation came out the way that someone who usually doesn't cook took it over, and we ended up having a very tasty chili sin carne. I had to do zero kitchen work.

I'm organizing food for a meeting with friends.
First step: get everyone (or at least one person per family/partnership/polycule) into the same chat.
Second step: Find out dietary requirements (e.g. intolerances, roughly acceptable spice levels, strong dislikes, vegan/vegetarian).
Third step: gather ideas and run them by the group.
Fourth step: have someone shop for the ingredients because we might be about 6 plant eaters and I'm not going to drag that much food to the venue without a car.

Another thing I found out recently (by asking my scientist wife): Because we live at an altitude of about 900 m (~2900ft), water boils at 97°C. That might mean cooking times are a wee bit longer here.

I think that's not really significant yet.

It seems that the fiber content has a lot to do with the feeling of satiety I can get from whole-grain bread (and whole-geain noodles and brown rice).

I have a weird relationship with bread. I like to have some of it in the house as a staple, especially for quick meals, but the bread at local bakeries doesn't satisfy me. (Sorry, local bakeries!) And I have come to prefer oats with fruit for breakfast.

The only bread that satisfies me is full whole-grain, preferably with some rye in it, and now I've sent my wife (a biochemist, among other things) down a rabbit hole about the reasons.

Because I've been thinking about this - how much time do you spend on an average day on everyday cooking?

For me, it's about an hour, I estimate. I cook some lunch (unless there are leftovers) and dinner nearly every day. I eat mostly plant-based. I wonder if that's a realistic time budget or if I'm just being extra.

Chickpea cooking success!

This will require more planning, but I'm willing to go that extra half mile.

Supposedly, cooking beans from scratch also has a smaller ecological footprint. I don't remember where I heard this, though.

I won't always have the spoons for it, so canned stuff still has its place in my pantry.

I'll make some hummus from this batch; let's see how the taste differs from canned chickpeas!

I'm trying to cook chickpeas from scratch for the first time.

Curious how it will turn out.

Canned chickpeas are just outrageously expensive at our village store. Hauling them from the city where they are half the price is a giant schlepfest.

I tried rice milk and I dislike it. Much too watery.

Say, kitchen (and adjacent foodiverse): if I wanted to buy a blender that is powerful enough to blend nut butters, but not spend an arm and a leg for it - what features or specs should I look for?

I have a mini food processor/immersion blender in my kitchen, but sometimes I feel like I'm demanding too much of the poor thing.

#kitchenappliances #advicewanted

It's hot af and suddenly I crave foods I'm usually not fond of, e.g. frozen yogurt and ice tea.

Also I made my first veggie broth from scratch and it turned out delicious. I'd like to try tossing in a few mushrooms next time just to maybe add a bit more umami, but apart from that, it turned out lovely.

I had this tofu stir-fry (minus onions and broccoli) today and it was so satisfying.

https://minimalistbaker.com/general-tsos-tofu/

#tofu #vegan

Found out over the past few weeks: Soaked and pureed cashews make an excellent replacement for cream in a lot of soups, and they make my vegan "cheese" sauce even more delicious.

It's not that I object to cream, but whenever I buy some, I end up using half of the jar and the other half goes bad.

I detailed the idea here: https://kith.kitchen/@draco/101483599188287054

#MealPlanGenerator

idk, I might upload it to Github/some other code sharing website at some point?

So today I finished work on the first version of my menu plan generator. I think there's a lot that could still be improved/made more flexible, and it could be internationalized, but... it's good enough for my purposes. And it produces nice #LaTeX output now.

(That generator was originally an idea of my wife, and then I took it over and refactored it.)

#python #mealplanning #programming

I made sunflower seed butter a week ago or so. A bit of work, but sooo tasty, and in the end, the recipe is simple:

1. Roast sunflower seeds in a pan. Oven roasting would probably work as well. I took 100 g, but that's a very small batch.

2. Dump them into a blender with a tiny pinch of salt. Blend away until a smooth paste forms.

3. Fill into a clean jar, store outside of the fridge.

Apparently, the village grocery store stopped carrying whole grain wheat flour. They still carry quinoa and chia and other hipster stuff (which I gladly eat as well), but no whole grain wheat flour? C'mon, you've got to be kidding me.

Current state of mind: Tossing together a few ingredients for BBQ sauce was nearly too much for my frazzled brain. Glad dinner will be potato wedges and veggie "chicken" nuggets.